Poetic

Words are flying out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
are drifting thorough my open mind
Possessing and caressing me

Really poetic lyrics. I feel its one of the best songs ever written by The Beatles.

Plushie

As requested by Janice, I'm updating my blog.

Finally, a portrait of my favourite photo subject...my lion!

Alhambra

Tinge

Fly away 无穷无尽是你深邃的眼睛
看著你 就可以让我茫茫人海里感到安定

You never know do you?

Comfort in my time of need....

Random, unconnected thoughts....unconnected to you anyway.

Cheers!

Child

What brings about such a nature?

Why the pettiness of a seven-year-old?

Its amazing that you miss it when it perfectly describes what you are.

And i'm not talking about the child-like innocence.

But the petulance...the sheer behavioral nature of your actions.

Much like a school playground scuffle.

You carry the wounds with you through life....and possibly to your grave.

You are driving such a vessel, propelled by your severe insecurity and pathetic nature.

Hiding behind a shield of worldly pleasures.

Scared to face reality.....scared to face the world.

Failure.

Unbelievable...Purely, utterly unbelievable.

But I don't care. If anything, my overseas tour has taught me to effective block out emotions when things need to be done.

Woots! (Ok, that was pretty random. But who cares? Avogadro! Haha!)

Competition

Was reading the papers this morning can came across this letter on the forum page.

The writer is obviously writing this letter from the perspective of the consumer, without looking at this matter from the other side.

Why should Singtel accept Starhub's offer? I believe that Singtel paid a lot to secure "exclusive broadcasting rights" to the EPL. Why should they accept Starhub's offer? It doesn't make any sense no matter which way I look at it. The amount that Singtel earns from each customer paying for the sporting plan is marginal; maybe even at a loss. My guess is that their profits come mainly from customers subscribing to other channels at the same time, as well as the main, primary package. This razor-and-blade kind of business model would only work, if consumers purchase more than the main package. With such a huge fee being paid by Singtel, its hard to see how they would be making a substantial profit solely through sporting channels.

It is also likely that hardcore EPL fans will switch service providers in order to carry on watching the sport that many hold dear. So why give up this potential goldmine? No reason whatsoever...

Utterly ricidulous in my opinion.

Ouch

I feel like my gluts exploded

Liberation

Total liberation this time.

ORD Lo!!!

Shooting

Finally got down to shooting. Been kinda out of form recently. Need to get the spark going again. But hey, at least I got down to doing something.

Concert

Woots! She is finally coming! Haha

VLC

VLC is perfect sans for one small problem. The lack of controls in full screen mode. In most other areas, it performs well with little bugs.

Pensieve

It’s not very often that I reveal emotions on a public domain such as this. But I think this occasion certainly warrants such a post.

I have just returned to Singapore after an overseas stint.

Spending this amount of time away has led me to make many gains. I have learnt tons; much more than I would learn anywhere else during these two years. Learnt about the world, about human relations, about leadership and above all else, learnt more about myself.

But that is just a side story. This post is for the seven other dudes that helped me along the way. Of course, many others have shared my pain along this journey, especially friends in Singapore. But no one else has endured what we have. So here goes…

QX, don’t be so depressed yea? It will all be over soon. Remember what Ervin told us when we first got there? I have queued for my meal and have started to eat. Yours is coming soon. Hang in there.

Poon, thanks a billion for your help man. It really helped to have someone that I knew (albeit briefly) to go through shit. Been nice to know you better which I never had the chance to do so after I got out of kayaking. Cheers!

Chiam, my fellow Ninja buddy. I think we never give you enough credit for the work that you do and the help that you contribute. To top it off, we tease you and shit. But no hard feelings ya? ORD Lo!

Colin, hang in there. As I told QX, you turn is coming soon. Just suck it up and do it. You’re almost there. Still on for dinner on your ORD day?

YC, we have never had a terrific relationship. But life is like that. You will never go through it without conflict. Regardless, thanks for your help too! No hard feelings too

ZR, didn’t spend as much time with you as I did with the others due to your late arrival here. But I’m very happy that you came up here. See you for 鸡扒面 very soon.

Lastly, Ernest. You have always done the most shit work out of all of us. It has been nice working with you in the office when we had to push out multimedia stuff. Keep up with the exercise and you’ll tone up very well. You really looked very sad when you sent us off at the airport. Almost there yea! Hang in there!

Got through this unscathed, we have. Embark on the next journey of our lives, we will. I wish you all the best. It has been my pleasure to serve with you.

After all, the culture is strong…

Ramblings

Deep in my heart I'm concealing
Things that I'm longing to say

Tissue

I have never approved of using a packet of tissue as an ad-hoc "Reserved" sign. Seems that this lady doesn't too.

Just leave one person behind to watch the table. Wouldn't that be so much easier and more considerate.

Paradox

"This page is intentionally left blank"

Not very blank now is it?

Poken

Came across this recently and was rather impressed with it. Haven't had the time to look into how it works and the interface and stuff like that, but I can foresee one major problem with this.

Not many people will have it.

Hell

Hell knows no bounds.

It unleashes all its fury.

It uses us and then throws us to its hell hounds as chew toys.

By the end, we are all just chewed meat.

What glorious shit has been thrown into our faces.

What huge-ass arrows have come our way.

Asshats.

But I don't care. I am going to ORD.

Frozen

"Friendships freeze up, then dethaw..."

The word 'dethaw' was a little off...but the message came through loud and clear. Its been something on my mind for the past few days. As usual, questions but no solutions....

Thank you for being a sounding board. Means a lot to me :)

Actually to all you peeps who have lent me their ears, thank you!

Sucker

Why do we always end up being the suckers?

P.T Barnum once said

"There is a sucker born every minute"

How true...

Fight for it! Possible? Hope so...

Powershot

Canon has released an update to the G10. The G11 looks good in the press release.

At least there is some form of RAW support unlike the Panasonic LX3.

Why fix something that ain't broken. The G9 was awesome, the G10 slightly less so. Lets hope the G11 bucks the trend and improves.

Ape

Stupidity

Rare that I post twice in a day, but I came across something here that I really must talk about.

This lady (I shall try to be nice here) wants to ban all NSF's and NS men from taking public transport. She claims that she was on a bus when a group of "army boys" boarded. And they were sweaty and smelled.

I think that she has some serious issues.

Disturbing to know that there are people in Singapore who feel that they are not being well protected by the military force, but choosing not to migrate away. If she really feels that our servicemen are not doing a good enough job defending the nation, move! Get your lazy, rich, gigantic ass out of the nation.

What does she have against servicemen? She expects us to take a cab with what allowance we receive from the government. If she has such high standards, why doesn't she take a cab herself?

Retard in every bloody sense of the word. It is Singaporeans like that which disgust me...

Crushed

CS4

I have been looking at Adobe Photoshop CS4 and I must say, I am really impressed by what I see. It is a huge huge upgrade over CS3. I will talk about some features that really interests me.

Firstly, it is reported to be much faster than CS3. That alone is immensely important. The loading time for CS3 is really crappy. Coupled with the time taken to open files and save documents.

Secondly, there is this feature called "Content-aware Scaling". This feature allows the user to scale the background, without affecting the main subject much. For example, I have a picture of a cactus in a desert. I can scale the desert to any ratio without making it look weird. I cannot, on the other hand, do the same with the cactus. In the past, I would have to cut the cactus onto another layer and do the scaling. Now, Photoshop does it for me.

Thirdly, the panoramic stitching and tone mapping features are much better.

Lastly, is a feature listed as "Extended Depth-of-Field". This is the feature that I am most excited about. It allows one to create a single shot, from a series of shots that are focused on different point in the frame. This allows the creation of an image that is sharp front-to-back without stopping down the lens, losing sharpness in the process...

Pity my computer is unable to support it at the moment.

Nifty

I have been wondering why Olympus hasn't updated the pancake lens in a while. I'm sure many wouldn't mind sacrificing a little size to get a wider maximum aperture. Maybe something like a f/1.8 or even better, an f/1.4....imagine that...

Cloud

I have been thinking about backing up my data on the cloud. Just look at the benefits. Small monthly payment, secure backups, backups in a different location, automated backup process. Backblaze seems to fit my requirements fairly well. I probably should do a bit more research before I jump in though.

Detained

Having read in recent months about the unjust "imprisonment" of Aung San Suu Kyi, there are some thought that I feel I need to express.

For the uninformed, Ms. Suu Kyi is currently being detained by the Burmese Junta for infringing on the (ridiculous) terms of her house arrest. Sometime in mid-May 2009, an American by the name of John William Yettaw swam across the moat surrounding her place of residence. He was allowed to stay two days before he swam back.

Her trial is obviously unfair towards her. How can the prosecution be allowed 14 witnesses and her only allowed one (and this after two witnesses were rejected by the court).

She has been under house arrest in 13 of the past 19 years. My guess is that she will be under it for a lot longer as the Junta attempts to hold power. Power which does not rightfully belong to them. Ms. Suu Kyi actually won the 1990 general elections and should have rightfully claimed the title of Prime Minister, but the Junta refused to hand over power and placed her under house arrest.

How will this trial play out, I do not know. Fairly I hope...

Iraheta

Woots! Allison Iraheta is releasing an album under the same label as Allen and Lambert. It would be interesting to find out if it will play out like the Clay-Ruben saga in which the runner-up becomes more successful than the winner.

3.0

iPhone 3.0. The long awaited update to the iPhone. It looks good. Better security, improved camera. Longer battery life. There even is a feature to prevent your iPhone from getting stolen, or worse, let your data get into the wrong hands.

Coming to Singapore in July '09. Look for it.

Interesting that the iPhone update came near the release of the Palm Pre. Looks like a war for the smartphone market is coming up. And that only means one thing, better phones at cheaper prices.

Allen

Haha. Kris won...Woots

Lambert

Adam Lambert will win American Idol. I am not saying this from a fan boy perspective. In fact, I do not like his singing and very much would prefer Kris Allen to win. His singing really tugs more at one's heartstrings. But back to the point, this is why Adam will win.

Humans are selfish and loyal. If fact, they are loyally selfish and selfishly loyal. When ones favourite is knocked out of the competition, there is a natural tendency to stop voting. So if you divide the rest of America into 4 main groups, it is obvious who will win.

Dividing into "Straight Men", "Gay Men", "Straight Women" and "Gay Women", you can almost assign who will vote for whom. The homosexual group will vote for Adam because there are reports that he is gay, the straight women will vote for Adam because he is hot. And the Straight Men will vote for Kris because he is the only other one left.

Of course, this goes by the assumption that America votes primarily on race, gender and religous loyalties rather than by vocal ability. And that is an assumption that one can readily make looking at the history of American Idol. Look at it, Taylor Hicks, Jordin Sparks, Ruben Studdard winning while Clay Aiken, Chris Daughtry, Blake Lewis, Katherine McPhee coming in short.

I really hope that I am wrong here though. This is one time where I would love to be proven wrong.

Windows

They say that eyes are the windows to the soul. But are they? True, they may shed some light on what deep, inner thoughts lie within the individual, but at the same time, such hidden emotions may remain as such, hidden. Beneath a bright, jovial, positive could lie a sea of self-doubt and sadness. Eyes may be the windows to the soul. But just as curtains and blinds distort what others see, do not judge a person by his outer self.

Random ramblings.....thought-provoking, but random. And here is the photo that sparked this train of thought off.

Idol

I have been watching the American Idol finals with some sort of a renewed vigour this season. Some of the contestants that I liked didn't make it from the Top 36 into the Top 13. I shall share some of my thought about the contestants this year as I feel that this is the strongest group that I have seen. Never really got into feeling Jasmine, Alexis, Anoop and Jorge. Couldn't connect with them. Especially Anoop. Really hate his performaces. Can't understand why the judges like him. But well, its their opinion. Adam Lambert...Great vocals but crappy stage presence. His swagger is really irritating at times. But his "Black Or White" was somewhat amazing if you close your eyes and focus solely on the vocals. Michael was an average singer at best, but was really let down by some song choices. Allison is really great. She manages to put a rock twist on all her songs. Really calm and composed for a 16 year old. She is just 16 but woah....Excellent vocals. Scott is really getting to me. Some people (Liju...and Liju...and Liju) don't like his voice or his performance. But he is really sincere about what he does and I can feel that he is trying to connect with the audience. Matt is great. Period. Danny is good. But couldn't connect with him till this week. Much like Lil' and Kris. Only recently have I opened up to them. I really liked Megan. She had this unique quality to her voice that I found endearing and really nice. Pity she is out though. Bad song choices in the last couple of weeks. Eagerly awaiting the finals. Should be a tough call to make given the strength of the talent pool this year. Will be fun to watch.

Return

In about 24 hours I shall return to a location that I will call home for the next 6 months.

Fallen

No, not me. But sounds like a good caption.



Stand tall.

Noise

I need a camera with much better low light performance. The amount of noise created is sick.

Honestly sick.

There is so much noise that detail is being taken out.

And I wish Olympus would release an update to their 25mm (EFL 50mm) f2.8 pancake lens.

Hopefully a 25mm f1.4 or f1.8 lens.

Now that would be good...The bokeh would be beautiful.

Innovation

One look at the new iPod Shuffle and it is evident that it is an Apple product.

The clean lines...

The curves...

The elegant design...

But there seems to be something missing. No, I do not mean buttons.

I mean Mr. Jobs.

Its just different. I cannot understand why they would move the buttons onto the earphones. That would mean that third party earphones will not work without an adapter.

The difference here is that Steve Jobs would be able to convince you that having the button on the earphones is a major improvement. He would be able to sell this "imperfection" (for lack of a better word).

Without Steve Jobs, there would be no Apple today.

Without Steve Jobs, will there be an Apple tomorrow?

Climb

C'mon....keep climbing.....Don't stop....

Touchdown

Back.

Bankrupt

It is reported here that Ritz Camera is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

For those who do not know, Ritz Camera is the largest camera reseller in the United States of America. They owe Canon and Nikon a total sum of USD$40m, broken down into USD$26m to Canon and the rest to Nikon.

The only conceivable reason that such a huge retailer will fall is that customers are moving towards buying their purchases online. The only reason that I would buy something from a reseller, is the value-added services that they provide. There is no way that they would be able to match Amazon in price.

Perhaps this is the only way to survive in such a cut-throat business world. You have to provide excellent service.

On another note, Annie Leibovitz, one of the most celebrated portrait photographers has put up the rights to all her photos as collateral in exchange for a 15.5 million dollar loan.

Woah....

I mean, Annie Leibovitz is one of the most successful photographers, possibly ranking along side people like Ansel Adams. For her to be facing such a financial catastrophe is unthinkable. She must be damn bloody cock-sure that she will pay off her debts though.

Interesting......

Slow

I can't take it anymore

No more shit

I'm starting to get desperate.

My laptop is running too slow....Reformat......

Yes! Reformat.

Norm

Why are people so afraid of change? The comfort of the present?

If it ain't broke, should we fix it?

Even technology conforms to the norm. A camera sensor would see the world to be 18% grey, depressing as that sounds.

Change? Change is the only constant.

Thoughts

I have been in a strangely pensive mood recently.

Thinking about things that are far beyond my control. Even for things that are within my control, I have been thinking way too deeply. Some nights I am exhausted, but I just can't seem to fall into a peaceful slumber. Its like my body wants to shut down, but my brain just keeps working. If only I could study while I was asleep, that would be cool.

Talking about studying while I was asleep, a few nights ago, I dreamt that I was calculating ionic character. Interesting, considering that I read through the formula about a week back, but can't recall it.

Questions

Many questions, no answers.

Somebody help me.

Megapixel

Was listening to a podcast when a debate over the megapixel war began.

I think not many people will agree with me, but the number of megapixels are really unimportant. When you go to any consumer-orientated electronic store and ask about a specific camera model, the salesperson will almost definitely say "This camera has xx.x megapixels".

So what? Does the number of megapixels really determine how great your photo is? In order to fit the same number of megapixels on a sensor of equal size, the manufacturers essentially increase the number of individual sensor pixels while at the same time, shrinking them. This leads the less light being captured, forcing the camera to increase the voltage to the sensor.

At the end, all you have is a noisy photo.

Why do people think that resolution and picture quality are the same thing? And honestly, you will only need high resolution images if you want to print them. Even if you were printing images, a 3MP camera would produce beautiful A4 sized prints.

I would buy a point-and-shoot with a 3-4MP sensor, RAW capture, a hotshoe mount and ISO up to 3200, maybe even 6400. Just so that I can get beautiful, noise free images in the day, and usable pictures taken in the dark.

Stop the megapixel war and focus on other things that matter more like reducing noise at high ISO and improving the optics of consumer cameras.

Litmus

I have been missing for a while. Reason being that I have been quite busy these couple of weeks. No cause for concern though. I'm fine and well.

Was reading and found out that litmus paper is just paper soaked in a litmus solution. Litmus is basically a weak acid that is red in colour. Its conjugate base is blue. So when hydrogen ions are added, by Le-Chateliers Principle, the position of equilibrium shifts and it turns red.

Cool huh?

Reflections

Happy New Year to all.

I really do not know how to describe my 2008. It started off with my enlistment into the SAF. My failure to get into command school and my disappointingly average A-Level grades. Then came my overseas posting which luckily, came attached with a 5-month long experience in HQ Armour.

It has been a good journey so far. No doubt, it came with its own share of heartbreaks and sorrows. Pain came and went, hardships have passed. But the happy memories of the year still remain.

I have to say that my decision to come here has been a very good one. It has taught me to value the simple things in life more. It taught me to be a lot more independent. I mean, I was independent to begin with, but this has brought the game to a whole new level.

However, the most important lesson that I have learnt is to look for the positives in life. This is something that everyone should try and inculcate. It changes ones whole outlook on life and on key events that may happen.

I hope 2009 will be a much better year for all. No resolutions for me. They are overrated and forces you to try and adhere to something that you do not enjoy, only for you to think back at the end of the year and realise that your resolutions were not kept.